


The Gates of Troy

by adreadfulidea



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Backstory, Fake Hauntings, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 09:30:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15748953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreadfulidea/pseuds/adreadfulidea
Summary: “Oh, Mrs. O’Brien,” she moaned, her teeth chattering, “it was so awful. That face all white, looking out the window.”





	The Gates of Troy

 

 

The kitchen maid in those days was called Bess and she wore her hair all piled on top of her head like she was a Biograph Girl. Her nose was round as a tomato and just as red, too, to match her streaming eyes and windburned cheeks. The silly bint was crying away, pressing her hanky to the wet edges of her eyelashes. “Oh, Mrs. O’Brien,” she moaned, her teeth chattering, “it was so awful. That face all white, looking out the window.”

“What were you doing out there, you ridiculous thing?” O’Brien asked, raising her candle to look into the girl’s face. “If Mrs. Hughes catches on that you snuck out she’ll have you out on your ear.” She felt a grim satisfaction that Bess had come to her rather than Hughes; but best not let her see it. “Meeting some boy, were you?”

“Oh no,” Bess said, shaking her head and drawing her blanket closer around herself to chase away the shivers. It was a cold night. “No boys. Only — one of the other girls dared me to. She saw him, too, last week. In broad daylight, she said.”

Broad daylight, thought O’Brien. She poured Bess another cup of tea and sent the girl off to bed with warnings about letting her imagination run away with her. For an hour afterwards she smoked and stared into the heart of the fire.

 

 

It was an old, disused barn on the edge of the property. There was a farm there once, too, but almost no trace of it remained. The girls had passed it taking a shortcut in from the village and that was where they saw their ghost. O’Brien headed out early the next morning under the pretense that she had to stop by the post. She took a lantern because it was likely to be dark inside and one of Lord Grantham’s walking sticks: not because she believed in ghosts, but because she didn’t.

The inside of the barn was rife with shadows and black moths that chased the glow of her lantern. She walked through dusty shafts of light with the stick held tightly in her fist, and at the back she found Bess’ ghost.

He was asleep in an ancient pile of hay, flat on his back. Black hair, pale skin. Fine features but not fine clothes; they were too big and had been patched back together more than once. Perhaps that was by design — he had the coat wrapped around him like a blanket. Both he and it were visibly dirty. It was hard to guess his age under the circumstances but she didn’t think he was north of twenty. If that.

There was a table with a chair, rickety but good enough to sit at. There were scraps of food — if you were generous enough to call it such — on the table, a lump of dry cheese and some crusts of bread. She set her lantern next to it and took a step forward and used the stick to tap him on the foot.

“Wakey-wakey,” she said.

He rose up immediately and in a panic, stumbling back, his feet slipping in the hay. For a second the white showed around his eyes before he regained control and composed himself; it happened fast, like he was used to having to do so, like he was determined not to give anything away. So she’d been right, then. No ghost and no hardened criminal. Barely more than a boy and he was on the run from something. Or someone.

“Christ,” he said. “Where did you come from?”

“Where did I come from?” she asked. “It’s your barn, is it?”

He was patting at his pockets for some item, which turned out to be cigarettes. “Is it yours?” he asked. “You don’t have to call the police. I’m on me way out.”

“This barn,” she said, “and this land, is the property of Lord and Lady Grantham. I work for the house.”

“Grantham,” he said. “Grantham — as in, Yorkshire?”

She stared at him. “Yes,” she said, crisply. “Do you not know where you are?”

He threw himself into the chair in disgust when he couldn’t produce his matches. The unlit cigarette dangled between his teeth. “Not until now,” he said. “I’ve had a bad time of it lately. But of course it is bloody Yorkshire. Where else? I can’t seem to get shot of it. It clings to me like a muck.”

“You’re a local boy.” Which she had already guessed, but it was nice to have it confirmed.

“Leeds,” he said. “An age ago now. But I’ve been all around these past few years.”

“How long have you been here? In the barn, I mean.”

“Three weeks,” he said, and sighed. He attempted to give her a winsome look, which might have worked on some but not her. “You seem like a nice woman,” he wheedled. “So how about you don’t call the coppers on me, right? Or tell your Lord and Lady Grantham. I’ll make myself scarce. I think the storm has passed, anyway. I promise you’ll never see me again.”

“Going to family?”

His expression darkened. “If I had family,” he said, “would I be in this barn?”

“Suppose not,” O’Brien said. “What’s your name?”

His eyes flicked back and forth. “Why?”

“Why not?” she asked, acidic. “Are you an escaped murderer? A prince in hiding? Will I recognize you from the papers?”

“‘Course not,” he said, and took the cigarette out of his mouth, looking at it longingly. “It’s Thomas. My name is Thomas Barrow.”

“Thomas,” she said, and handed him her own pack of matches. His eyebrows climbed up his forehead but he accepted them. “My name is Sarah O’Brien, and I am not going to call the police.”

 

 

There were a lot of places on the property to stash a man, but O’Brien chose a disused cottage. It was dusty but solid, had all the necessary furniture, and he could haul in water for a bath from the well. She brought him food once a day. It wasn’t much more than one good meal, but that was more than he was getting before.

“I don’t understand,” he said from where he was sitting on the bed one day, the fire burning against the early winter cold. “Why are you doing all of this? What do you get from it? There’s a price coming due, I know it. Don’t pretend.”

Clever lad, she thought. Good. She could use clever.

“Maybe I just like you,” she said. “Or maybe you’ll find out in due time.”

He went stiff all of a sudden, rigid as one of the upstairs stuffed shirts. He inched forward to the edge of the bed, as far as he could before dropping his behind on the ground. She watched him in bafflement. He was nearly visibly sweating. He looked like he was trying to be nice. What on earth?

“Look,” he said. “Sarah. I’m not saying I don’t like you as well — but —”

“Good god,” she said. “I didn’t mean that, you great lummox!”

“Right,” he said. “Well, neither did I.”

“Think a bit much of yourself, do you?”

“Sarah —”

“Shut up,” she said, and he did. “There’s a footman position available at Downton. I want you to apply for it.”

“I can’t. I’ve never been a footman,” he said. “I’d have no idea how to go about it. And I have no references.”

“What have you been doing?” she asked. “Out of curiosity.”

“This and that.”

“Right,” she said. “Well, we can discuss the specifics of your criminal history later on. Being a footman is all lift and stand and carry. You’ll be on your feet but you’re young and healthy, that’s not a problem. Keep your mouth shut, do what you’re told, and you can pick it up quick enough. So unless you’re content to keep on living in this lap of luxury, heed my advice. And you _do_ have a reference.”

“You,” he said, catching on.

She smuggled him in a suit, one from an upstairs wardrobe that Patrick had left behind after a visit. He shaved in a cracked wall mirror and combed his hair properly and by the time he was done he looked sharp and smug and too pretty for his own good. She felt a swell of pride so maternal it embarrassed her.

“Do I pass inspection?” he asked.

“If I say yes will you accuse me of being in love with you again?”

“I wasn’t —”

“Shush now,” she said. “You’ll do.”

There was a hunger in his face that she recognized. It was what she had hoped she could bring out in him in the first place. The thing they had in common, under the skin.

“Straighten your shoulders,” she told him. “And good luck.”

 

 


End file.
